


Prologue: She Knows

by JulisCaesar



Series: At the End of All Things [1]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: (honestly that would have been less painful), Gen, but i didn't, i could have written a fic about an empty abandoned citadel, set post s6, so not tagging characters because spoilers, there ARE characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 03:44:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulisCaesar/pseuds/JulisCaesar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post series 6 of Gallifrey. Not going to put anything else because I know a lot of people haven't listened yet.</p><p>EDIT: Since the defeat of the Daleks, the Coordinator of the CIA has been hiding information from the Lady President, and he is about to severely regret this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prologue: She Knows

“Coordinator.”

He looked up, hearts in his throat. “My lady President,” he said, voice neutral. “What can the CIA do for you?”

She raised an eyebrow, closing the door to his office behind her. For reasons best known only to her, she was still wearing her Council robes, the heavy gold and white ones worn by the President on official business. “Coordinator, if I needed something from the CIA, I would have summoned you.”

Suddenly abruptly certain why she was here, he gave her his most patently bland look. “Then what may  _I_  do for you?” There were two options, and he wasn’t sure he liked either of them.

“The Chancellery Guard is waiting outside the door,” she said, watching him from near the door. “They have orders to arrest you if I don’t leave alive.” Her voice was bland, flat, and dead, like nothing he had heard from her since their return.

He could only think of one reason why she’d be here, saying this, but he _couldn’t_  tell her. It’d break her if she knew, this fact was branded into his mind, the sight of Ro –  _the Lady President_ broken and crying was one he had seen too many times already. So lie, mislead, deceive – things he had done a hundred thousand times before. It should be easy. “I’m sure I do not understand what you mean, Madam President.”

“I’m sure that you  _do_ , Coordinator,” she snapped, just enough emphasis on his title for him to take her meaning. The Coordinator of the CIA didn’t have the same protections from the Lady President as Narvin did from Romana. What he didn’t miss, although he wasn’t sure it was intended, was that it also distanced herself from him, a change in their relationship.

He straightened in his chair, face flat. “You are aware this action could be viewed as a threat.” He let no emotion slip into his voice, placing the same weight on each word.

She eyed him, looking more suspicious than he had seen her in spans. “It was intended as one.”

His immediate instinct was to tense and lash out, the second one to beg forgiveness. Both were shut down before they could even be displayed, replaced by a quiet indifference. Leaning back, he feigned relaxation. “Ah. Well then, Madam President, what do you want with me?”

“The CIA’s budget for the last span,” she said calmly, stepping closer to the massive pseudowooden desk. “The  _proper_ one, not that rubbish you sent me.”

This time he  _did_ tense, from confusion rather than fear. “You were sent the correct budget,” he said slowly, mind racing. He’d sent her the budget, he  _knew_ he did, he’d even sent her the one with the edits and corrections to take out the things the President would rather not know her CIA was up to. “I checked it myself.”

She strode over to his desk and leaned on it, face two feet from his. “And that was the first problem. The budget you sent me had  _your_  seal on it. Usually, I get some forgery from your office.”

He closed his eyes briefly to hold in the urge to swear. “That  _idiot_ ,” he spat quietly instead, making a note to dismiss his current secretary. Standing orders were to seal the budget the moment he had looked over it and send it to the President; he had – apparently naïvely – assumed that they were using  _his_ seal.

“Hmm,” she said, in a tone that meant she wasn’t thinking of his secretary, “quite. Unfortunately for you, that wasn’t the only thing wrong with your budget.”

Not for the first time, he cursed her observance, her insight. “Madam President?”

She took a very small step backward, just enough to allow her to look down at him properly. “The numbers added up correctly.”

He blinked in astonishment. “My pardon, Madam President, but I thought that was the whole  _point_ of a budget.”

“Which would be a much better excuse, don’t you think, if any of your  _previous_ budgets had shown such care?” she snapped. “Narvin, every span you submit a new budget, and every  _single_  time, you somehow operate approximately a thousand pandaks short. You  _always_  fail to account for a considerable sum of money, and I just let it pass, thinking  _that_  was the sacrifice made for having a semi-competent spy service! This time, however –” She stopped short, shaking, eyes narrowed in anger. “Precise to the very last part. Which suggests that _someone_  went over it with a comb.”

Several thoughts ran through his mind in quick succession: She’d used his name.  _How_  had he forgotten to account for bribes? She paid far too much attention to his agency than was really necessary. If only she wasn’t so  _brilliant_ – And then she finished, still glaring at him, and he realized how much trouble he was truly in. “Madam President –”

She ignored him. “But even that, I could have ignored. Even that – even evidence that you are  _lying_  to me, I could have accepted and dealt with. However,  _Coordinator_ , what about the Daleks?” Each word was clipped off and cut short; she was  _trembling_ , from rage and fear and something he couldn’t identify.

His hearts stopped completely. “The Daleks?” he echoed, completely lacking in anything else to say that wouldn’t place him in greater danger.

“ _Yes_ , Coordinator, the Daleks. Those megalomaniacal pepper pots  _your_ agency is charged with keeping away from Gallifrey, don’t you remember?” Her tone alternated between sickly sweet and acid.

“I am aware of their existence, yes,” he snapped, hoping to fight fire with fire and maybe head this off.

Triumph gleamed in her eyes. “Your budget isn’t,” she shot back and his stomachs plummeted. “Nowhere in that monstrosity you call a budget is even a single pandak dedicated to Dalek surveillance.”

He could not even respond, just sit and watch her come closer and closer to a truth he was desperate for her to never uncover. It must have been during the editing, when he was frantically trying to cover up the excursions, the expeditions she had never given authorization for, he must have taken out the legitimate activities as well. It had been such a brilliant idea: if the destruction of the Daleks couldn’t occur at the source, at least he could continue weakening them throughout their long history. He had never intended for  _her_  to find out about it.

“So let me see if I understand this, Coordinator,” she said, voice worryingly calm and dripping in sugar. “Your budget doesn’t include the Daleks, which means that you don’t want me to know that you’re dedicating what must be a _considerable_  sum of money to finding them. Now, to my knowledge, all of the Daleks at this point in time are trapped inside the Matrix. Isn’t that right?”

He nodded, otherwise unmoving.

She returned to leaning on the desk, something disturbingly akin to panic written on her face. “So your agents are operating earlier in relative time – when Daleks still roamed the universe.” She stopped, eyes scanning him. “All of this I already knew. When I looked at the budget I knew what was missing, and I _know_  your agents have been breaking the Laws of Time to hunt down Daleks.”

He couldn’t breathe. “My lady President,” he said, voice subdued, “if you  _knew_ – I’m sorry, I fail to see what the problem is.” Other than her discovery of his illegal and catastrophically dangerous activities. Other than that.

“Who sent the Doctor?” she asked, quietly, ostensibly calmly, leaning on his desk, in his place of power, and asking a question that laid him bare for her. “For once, Narvin, tell me the truth – who sent the Doctor to Skaro?”

A tiny portion of his mind registered the use of his name, the rest shut down. “What?”

“I have been in the Matrix,” she said, eyes fixed on his. “I went and looked at the records of our war against the Daleks. And do you know what started it?”

Maybe –  _maybe_  if he didn’t move, she wouldn’t notice him. The fear instinct won out over the urge to tell her off for putting herself in danger yet  _again_ , and he remained still.

She waited until it was clear he wasn’t going to respond. “There is a gap in the Matrix records, when the backup was going online. After it restored, something interesting happened. The Doctor and his companions, who were previously on their way via transmit to Space Station Nerva, are suddenly on Skaro, and the Doctor is insistent that the Time Lords sent him to destroy the Daleks. Now you and I both know that everyone else with access to such devices was unconscious while the backups implemented, so, Coordinator. Was it you?”

“Braxiatel,” he said urgently. “He has a time scoop, it could have been him.”

Her lips thinned. “There is, however, the small question of motivation, Coordinator. Why would Braxiatel, who has no idea what is going on here, suddenly decide to make a move? Whereas you, given your reaction to my appearance, seem to have all the motivation in the world.”

 _“I don’t think Gallifrey can survive without Romana_.”

His breath came louder than it had any right to, drowning out any other sound. Gallifrey couldn’t survive without her, but he was dragging her down. It had been a decision made on impulse, out of an emotion he refused to identify, and he couldn’t allow that to happen again.

 _“I don’t think_ I  _can survive without Romana_. _”_

He swallowed. “Madam President, I submit my resignation from the post of Coordinator, to be effective immediately.” It was as good as a confession, and they both knew it.

Her eyes narrowed and she stepped back from the desk. “You are aware that your actions have cost innumerable lives and may be the beginning of outright war between our species?”

Teeth clenched, he nodded. Yes, he was aware, and he lived with it every moment of his life.

“Then I’m not sure what else I could do to punish you. Your resignation is accepted,” she said, voice flat and face locked behind the tightest mask he had ever seen on her. “You are dismissed.”

He stood, bracing himself against the desk when his legs threatened to give out. “I have a list of replacements –”

She looked past him, refusing to make eye contact any longer. “We will find them when your console is stripped.  _Dismissed_ , Coor – Narvin.”

He wanted to lash out, wanted to scream, wanted to kneel in front of her, wanted to take the last seven microspans back, wanted to regenerate, wanted a thousand things that were  _never_  going to happen. “My lady President,” he said, voice as controlled as ever, the slightest emphasis on the first word.

She did not turn to watch him walk out the door.


End file.
